I finally saw Solita. Her wound was almost identical to Father Cosgrave's — shrapnel, I judged, because Solita didn't even know what caused it. Paul Meyer quipped: "Better tell Henry the story, he's going to write a book."

She told me that the refugees at San Agustin numbered 5,000, and when I jumped at the figure, she said she would ask her in-laws for the best possible estimate. On their last day, about 300 died at San Agustin ... "due to a hand grenade." Now please follow me:

— "A hand grenade?"

— "I ... I think so."

— "A hand grenade can't kill more than ten or twenty," I said gently.

— "I don't know what it was ... it sure raised a lot of dust and smoke."

— "Maybe it was a bomb thrown in," I suggested.

— "Maybe."

— "Did you see the Jap that threw it?"

— "No, I don't know what it was."

So the Japanese didn't throw hand grenades there; something went in and exploded, killing many ... probably an American shell. So how did they get out?

— "Well, on Friday the Japs told us to evacuate to the Letran Building, so we left, led by only the four men left: Iquenza, a politician who did a great job of calming us, a Home Guard and two doctors. The rest of us trailed — and what a trail it was — the well, the sick, the weak, the wounded and even the dying. Iquenza had a white flag but the Japs kept shooting..."

— "At you?"

— "They killed Iquenza when he was only two steps from freedom."

— "The Americans were at Letran?"

— "Before Letran."

— "So actually, the Japs had sent you to your freedom."

— "Yes ... I guess so."

— "But as you left they shot at you?"

— "Well, the shooting went on — my knees buckled — I could hardly walk.... Yes, there was shooting all over."

— "If the Japs wanted to kill you there on the street, it would have been an easy matter. I doubt they were shooting to kill you."

I left it at that because she needed a rest. Her story reminded me of the Spanish diary the Connors showed me of a nun that ran from February 2 to 22. At San Agustin on the 20th, she wrote: "Not in one instant did the terrible bangs of the cannons or the fearful grenades stop." My guess is that she too couldn't tell the difference between a shell and a hand grenade.

. . . .

continues...